


Unwritten

by Repose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, and have made peace with that fact?, emotional catharsis, that one trope where a character is resigned to being left behind by a loved one?, this is that trope, you know that trope?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 04:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16590650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Repose/pseuds/Repose
Summary: Kravitz sighs, twirling his wineglass by the stem. “He won’t die for some six hundred years yet, Lup. That’s an incredibly long time. He’ll have found someone else by then.”Lup gapes at him. This — Kravitz is definitely not talking about retirement. He catches her staring. “Seriously, Lup. I’m sure he’s talked to you about this.”“No? Not a single word, babe.” Had they struck up some sort of deal while Lup wasn’t looking? No — it’s been ten years since ess-en-ess, Taako would tell her. “He’s notlookingfor anyone else.”“Of course not. Not yet.”“Do you think he’s going toleave you?”“Eventually,” he says, casually. He catches her continued astonishment and sighs. “Six hundred years is a long time, Lup. And he’s — well, he’s good. I’m…not.” When she makes ago onmotion at him he looks distinctly uncomfortable once more and says, “Surely I don’t need to spell this out for you.”





	Unwritten

When your goddess’s blessing allows you to go anywhere you wish, there’s no shortage of vacated dwellings to take advantage of. This particular afternoon-turned-evening finds the three of them at a pleasant little flower-wreathed cottage overlooking a placid lake. The cushions on some of the seats on the back porch have holes torn through them, and some of the boards on the dock are a little loose, but other than that, this abandoned lakehouse is in near-perfect condition.

Lup and Kravitz share a glass of red wine as Barry makes a quick Reaper run to the nearest winery to restock. Along the horizon, a curve of land like a great arm wraps around the horizon, doubled in stature by its reflection along the water. The setting sun casts the fringes of the trees bordering the water in a rusted gold, gleaming a quiet red off the surface of the lake.

It’s the lake itself that prompted their current topic of conversation: the little cottage atop the Sea of Souls. Lup visits Julia frequently for tea and scones, but she worries, as she’s telling Kravitz now, that it won’t be big enough to accommodate all of them.

Kravitz, already flushed from the drink his body has only recently remembered how to detox, explains wobbily the sort of strange _physics_ of the Astral Plane, how it can bend and warp, especially for a group with the Raven Queen’s blessing. “Really, it shouldn’t be too much trouble. Just ask her for a little more landmass. I’m sure she’d be willing to cede it until your souls recede.”

“Sure hope so, babe,” Lup says. “Not sure what we’re gonna do without it. They’ve got a one-bedroom sitch going on right now and I’m not sure we could fit all of us in that one room, y’know?”

Kravitz smiles softly. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

Lup hums an absent agreement before her eyes narrow. “You?”

“Sorry?”

“D’you think you’re _exempt_ from puttin’ a little backbone into this, Skeletor? Because if so, you got another think comin’ real quick.”

“Oh,” Kravitz says, looking a little surprised. “I mean, I would love to help. I’m sure I could intercede on your behalf with the Queen, though I hardly think it would come to that. You have her favor, and Taako has that of Lady Istus. I wouldn’t worry.”

“Ch’yeah, you’d better be ready to intercede. You’ve been working for the Queen for a couple hundred years now, babe, you’ve got the most weight in her court for _sure_. Me and Bear’ve only been doing this for like a decade, which is pig fry compared to most of you birdly beings.”

Kravitz quirks an eyebrow. “Pig fry?”

“‘s an expression,” she says. Can’t remember which plane it’s from right now, but it’s from...somewhere along the line. Front half of the century, she thinks. Maybe the plane with the unified language. The dialects on that plane had been chock _full_ of idioms. Some of them wormed their way into her brother’s book of truisms, if she remembers correctly. “Nah, but for real, Ghost Rider, you’d better pull your weight.” She leans over to jab a finger into his shoulder. “‘cept no givin’ you and Taako the biggest room. That one’s still gotta go to Mags.”

Now Kravitz looks uncomfortable. “I mean, I’ll certainly allow Taako to pick his own room.”

“What, you think he won’t give you a say?”

“Please — please don’t do that.”

Lup frowns. “Do _what?_ ”

“Act like I’ll be the one Taako takes with him when he dies.”

She blinks, blindsided. “ _What?_ ”

With what appears to be a tremendous amount of effort, he musters a smile. “I’m okay with it, really. I’m not offended. I know it won’t be me.”

“What makes you think you’re not gonna be there?” She eyes him suspiciously. “You’re not retiring early, are you? ‘Cause if you’re stealing our retirement bonuses Bear and I are gonna be real pissed.”

Kravitz laughs. “No, I imagine I’ll keep working for quite some time yet,” he says warmly.

“Then why?” she presses.

Kravitz sighs, twirling his wineglass by the stem. “He won’t die for some six hundred years yet, Lup. That’s an incredibly long time. He’ll have found someone else by then.”

Lup gapes at him. This — Kravitz is definitely not talking about retirement. He catches her staring. “Seriously, Lup. I’m sure he’s talked to you about this.”

“No? Not a single word, babe.” Had they struck up some sort of deal while Lup wasn’t looking? No — it’s been ten years since ess-en-ess, Taako would tell her. “He’s not _looking_ for anyone else.”

“Of course not. Not yet.”

“Do you think he’s going to _leave you?_ ”

“Eventually,” he says, casually. He catches her continued astonishment and sighs. “Six hundred years is a long time, Lup. And he’s — well, he’s good. I’m...not.” When she makes a _go on_ motion at him he looks distinctly uncomfortable once more and says, “Surely I don’t need to spell this out for you.”

“Get spelling,” she snaps. Her hackles are rising. Something isn’t _right_ , here.

“I mean, I’m not...” he trails off, eyes downcast like an easy way out is scrawled along the cobbled posts holding this deck together. Below them, the lake stands untouched. “Taako is...incredible. And I don’t just mean, you know, the Story. Saving the world aside, he — you know, it took me a long time to realize how much he cares.” He laughs quietly. “Taako really, genuinely cares about people. So deeply it astounded me. Mortals...most don’t care like that. Of course, there are thousands he couldn’t care less about, but for those he does care for...” his eyes crinkle fondly. “Well, you know this already. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do.”

“Yeah, yeah, skip that bit, Kravitz. I know my brother’s fucking awesome. Why do you think he won’t be with _you_?”

“I’m Death, Lup,” he says, like that should be self-explanatory. “I work for the goddess of death — ”

“So do I!”

“ — because you were conscripted into it,” Kravitz points out gently. “I don’t even know who I _was_ , before I joined the retinue of my Queen. Music is really all I have left of a mortal life, and that’s a pretty poor basis for a personality. Taako is warm, and I’m, well...cold. I only recently understood again what it was to be truly alive.” Kravitz’s face softens, one hand curling to rest along his own wrist, clearly lost in thought. Then he looks sidelong at her. “I’ll be forever grateful for that, you know.”

Lup shakes her head. So he’s dead — so what? So’s she. Doesn’t make Barry love her any less. Doesn’t make her any less of a _person_.

But when she points that out he only shakes his head again. “It’s been a thousand years since I was alive,” he says slowly. “Really, truly alive. Do you know how long that is, Lup? It’s — it’s a real fuckin’ long time. I’m not even really a person, when you think about it. I’m a memory of someone, and someone I’ve never met. Someone that no one in living memory knows.

“Your brother is — he’s _everything_. He’s everything to me, and he’s everything to so many people, and someday he’ll meet someone who deserves him. And I — I’ve made my peace with that, Lup, I really have. That person isn’t... _me_. It can’t be me. Eventually, Taako will realize that. But I....” he trails off, running an absent finger over the rim of his wineglass, and horrified curiosity wars with righteous indignation. She sort of wants to slap the glass out of his hand, or maybe make him drink the rest, just to find out exactly what the _fuck_ is going through that head.

“I treasure every moment that I spend with your brother. Taako.” A slow smile spreads across his face, just at Taako’s name. “Every day with him is a gift. At the risk of sounding sacrilegious — ” here he laughs again, “ — every day I get with him is a blessing. Whether it’s another month or another year, I’m going to revel in every single day I get with him. And when he finds someone better, I’ll be happy for him. No, really,” he protests, mistaking her shock and horror for skepticism with a sidelong glance. “Whoever they are, they’ll make him so happy. And they’ll know how lucky they are.” He raises the glass to his lips, but doesn’t drink, that contented smile still basking along his lips. “They’ll know just like I do.”

Lup shakes her head. This is _ridiculous_. She’d shake Kravitz if she thought it would work. “He loves you,” she says, because it’s all she can think to say. She knows this. _Taako_ knows this. Gods, he’s said it out loud.

“Oh, I know.”

“Then what — ” she cuts herself off with a frustrated noise, wine forgotten. The sun slips a little lower along the horizon, darkening the water from red to purple and sharpening the arm to a bristling mound of trees like spears. “You think he’s gonna leave you because you’re not a real boy? Is that the shit you’re pulling here, Pinnochio?”

“I don’t know who Pinnochio is, but that’s...part of it, yes.” Kravitz sighs. “Taako is...he has his flaws, of course. He never does the dishes. He stuff his pockets full of uncooked rice sometimes and forgets it’s there until we pull his clothes out of the laundry. But he’s...he’s not just great, Lup, he’s good. He’s really and truly good, and I can’t stack up to that. Not me. Not a man a thousand years out of time. Taako deserves better than that.”

“Okay,” Lup says, and she’s not super thinking about whether this is a great idea because most of her is just angry, except it’s the sort of angry that she _hates_ , because it’s undirected and most of the time that means it’s useless but right now there’s at least something she can do so she’s _gonna do it_. She conjures a scythe and tears a portal right back to Taako’s home and pins Kravitz with a glare. “Don’t move.”

Then she’s gone and through the portal and right in front of Taako, who has a bowl of overgreased popcorn on his lap and a scarf of two long kittens draped around his neck. “Hey, Lulu. You’re in the way of the TV.”

“Taako, get up. Something’s wrong with Kravitz.”

That gets his attention, as she knew it would. “This need me to follow you, or...?”

“In a moment. Up.”

He stands, quickly setting the bowl aside and lowering the cats to the floor, which stick their tails indignantly straight into the air and bound toward the kitchen. Her pulse is still racing. She needs to fix this.

Her scythe is in her hands and she should brief him on this, probably, but what the hell is she supposed to _say?_ How does she even begin to broach this topic?

In the end, she doesn’t. “Kravitz has something he needs to explain to you,” she grits, and tears a portal open, and shoves her brother through.

* * *

So Taako’s worried.

Not the gut-clenching panic of watching Angus start sniffling after eating a Taako-original with a dash too much pepper, and not the quiet thrum of anxiety every hour that ticks over seventy-two when the Reaper trio are on a mission and haven’t called him; a vague, unsourced sort of caution that he doesn’t know what to do with. He doesn’t know what to be worried about, and worse, he doesn’t know why Lup wouldn’t tell him.

He steps — well, he’s pushed — out onto a deck overlooking a quiet lake, dusk falling all around him, and there’s a startled noise from beside him, and there’s Kravitz, which is a good thing, he thinks. At least he knows Kravitz isn’t, uh, hurt or something.

No, this just means something’s up with _Kravitz_ , and this will probably mean emotions, so the coil of anxiety tightens to dread as he sits. He picks up his sister’s glass of wine, empty, and refills it for himself. “So,” he says, flicking the cap back on the wine. “Lup sent me.”

A wince flashes across Kravitz’s face. “She didn’t need to.”

Taako hums, taking a long sip. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, sets the glass on the riveted-wood handle of the chair. “Listen, I dunno why she sent me, so you’re gonna have to fill me in.”

“It’s not that big a deal. Really.”

“See, that actually just makes me even _more_ worried.”

Kravitz sighs. “There’s no good way to say this, Taako.”

“I’m alarmed, now. You’ve alarmed me. Neither of us wanted this.”

He looks hopeful. “We could go back home.”

“And Lup turns my scarves to ash ‘cause I didn’t figure out whatever she didn’t want to tell me herself? Nuh-uh, Bones, I am _attached_ to my cashmere. Spill.”

He rolls his glass between his hands and says, “Well, I explained to Lup...I think a lot of you, Taako. The world, in fact. You know that.”

Taako arches an eyebrow. “Of course.”

“And you deserve the world.”

Kravitz is dancing around something, and not elegantly. Taako’s throat is dry. “Natch.”

“I’m dead. I’ve been dead for a thousand years. It’s been...” he laughs self-deprecatingly. “It’s been a long, long time since I was alive. And thanks to you, I’m, shall we say, here again, but it’s still been...a very long time.”

“You’re an alive boy now. I know this.”

“Yes. Yeah.” Kravitz searches for words for a couple of moments then deflates, resigned. “I had to explain to her that you’ll find someone better, and she took it poorly. I’d assumed you had — well, broached the subject. Too late, I found out you hadn’t.”

Taako freezes, ears flicking sharply downward. “Sorry — _find someone better?_ ”

“Yeah.” Now he just looks uncomfortable. “This is really becoming a much bigger deal than it should be, I thought Lup knew and it turned out she didn’t, she didn’t need to come get you — ”

“What do you mean? No, listen, babe, what do you _mean?_ ”

“I mean — I’m Death and I’m also dead, and frankly, you could do better. It’s not — this isn’t a slight on you, Taako, I’m very happy to be right where I am and gods know I’m not looking forward to this day, but I thought it should be acknowledged — ”

“Are you — ” he starts, and Kravitz’s nervous babbling falls silent immediately. “Are you, fuckin’, operating under the assumption that I’m gonna _leave_ you?”

“Well,” Kravitz says, with the air of someone who has only now just realized that their plan has broken very, very badly, “yes.”

He shakes his head disbelievingly. “Why?”

“I’m Death,” Kravitz repeats slowly, but Taako cuts him off.

“Yeah, yeah, trust me, I figured that one out from the first spooky ghost appearance, don’t need a _Heisenberg_ to gimme that one. Death, dead, been dead for a thousand years and all that, why do you think I’m going to _leave you?_ ”

“Because you could do better. Much, much better. I don’t — we don’t need to talk about this, in fact I’m really thinking we shouldn’t because it wasn’t a plan of mine to bring this up with you, uh, until it happened — ”

“Nope!” Taako says, gleefully angry, because anger is far easier than horror and guilt. “No, we are deffo one- _hundo_ percent talking about this now, babe. When did you think this was gonna happen, huh? That I was gonna pack up my shit and go?”

“I couldn’t guess.”

“Gimme a number.”

“Taako....”

“Give me a _number_ , Kravitz.”

Kravitz looks away. “No,” he says quietly. “I’m not going to insult you like that, Taako. I don’t have — there’s no date I’ve picked as a personal deadline. I...I’m going to enjoy every day that we have together, and until that ends, I’m content right where I am.”

Taako sits back, the wind torn straight from his sails. And now that the protective facade of anger is gone, fear and guilt sweep right in to take its place. Sure, he’s got a problem with leaving people high and dry when they don’t interest him, but he’s been getting better about it. He sees Ango at least a few times a week, and he works with Ren, and he tells Kravitz he loves him as often as he can, which granted isn’t _often_ , because he’s got sort of a weird relationship with those three words, and he thought Kravitz _knew_ this. “Is it something I did? Like, did cha’boy _say_ something? To make you think I was gonna — fuckin’ — pack up and go?”

“No!” Kravitz exclaims, with an eagerness to reassure that makes Taako sick to his stomach. “No, Taako, it was never something you did. I — I know you love me. And I do too, so much, but — when you look at this, objectively, I suppose, the difference is obvious.” Kravitz reaches over the small green-leafed table between them to fold Taako’s hand in his and Taako shuts his eyes. “You deserve so much better than me, Taako. You deserve everything.”

Taako sort of — stops. He’s still in his body, there aren’t any magic jars linked with this tragedy, but he sort of has to make this new fact fit in with the framework of his very existence, which is tough, because Kravitz is a big part of that. He’s not as big a part of it as Lup, of course, but he’s somewhere up there with the rest of the chucklefucks he calls family. Sure, he knows it’s a big universe, but he’s also known enough of soured love to know when it’s _not_ gonna sour, and somewhere along the way he failed to realize Kravitz thought he was _temporary_ , and Taako needs to process that, a little.

There’s a soft voice speaking to him and one of his downturned ears flicks weakly in time to hear a soft voice, a beloved voice saying, “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Taako. I’m sorry.” A cool hand wraps around his jaw and tugs his face to the side and on habit Taako _goes_ , trusting, and something small and fragile within him breaks at the quiet fondness on Kravitz’s face. “Even after this ends, I’ll still love you. After you all die, I’ll — I’ll see what I can do about, you know, expanding the grounds of Magnus’s cottage and all that. The seven of you slept in small quarters for long enough,” he says wryly. “This time around, I think, you deserve something a tad more comfortable.”

“ _That’s_ what you think I’m worried about?” he demands, in a voice far smaller than he intends. “ _That_? Fuckin’ — Astral Plane accommodations, are you _kidding_? Kravitz, you aren’t _temporary_. You’re not some stepping-stone to something bigger, you’re — you’re endgame, my dude. I’m not on the market for anyone else. I don’t _need_ anyone else.”

He expects — hopes, even — that Kravitz will argue, because that’ll mean he’s at least listening, but Kravitz only traces a gentle, tender thumb along his cheekbone and says, “I know you love me, Taako. You’ve made that quite clear. But this won’t last. I don’t resent you for it, and I could never hate you, but one day you’ll realize...who I am, I suppose. You’ll realize just how much you deserve. And it’ll be a good day.”

“Bullshit,” Taako snaps, before he truly realizes what he’s saying. “Do you — do you realize what you’re saying? Like, have you thought about this a _bit_ , Kravitz? ‘Realize who you are,’ are you _kidding_? Do you think I don’t already know you?”

“Yes, but — ”

“Was that fake, then? All the — have you been acting, has all of this been some sort of — diversion, play, have you been lying — ?”

“Of course not!” he cries. “No, Taako, this has been real — ”

“Then how can you say I don’t _know_ you?” Taako demands, panicked and furious. “I saw you when you were drowning, and I’ve seen you after every single nightmare for every night since, I know — I know what your favorite desserts are, and the music you play when you’re happy and you’re sad and when you’re trying to cheer me up, am I _missing something_? Is there some deep dark part of the love of my life that he’s been hiding from me?”

“I’m Death,” Kravitz says weakly. “Taako, you shouldn’t have to deal with this. The nightmares, the — the long job postings, I’m cold, we’ll never lay together, the — the music at odd hours, I only recently remembered how to _sleep_!”

“I get nightmares too, Kravitz! All the fucking time! You cast Silence around the piano, and don’t you dare bring sex into this, you _know_ I’m fine with not having it, and you’re getting warmer, are you seriously complaining about job conditions? I’m okay with you leaving for a while so long as you call me, which you _do_ , you fucking _do that_ , Kravitz!”

“What about when you get tired of it? Of — of me?”

“When have I ever — Kravitz. Kravitz, have I ever given you any indication that I’m going to get tired of you?”

Kravitz falters. “No. Not...this isn’t you.”

“Stop fucking _deflecting_ , Kravitz, I didn’t ask for an assignation of blame, I — ” he buries his face in his hands, focusing on breathing. Panic is thudding through every cell of his body, like nothing he’s felt since the Day itself. He had no idea. He had no fucking idea. It’s been a year and Kravitz thought, every single day, that he was a — a pit stop. A little lemonade stand on the side of the road to deposit affection like five-cent coins and then just _leave_.

He scrolls through the past year, faster and faster, trying to figure out where he went _wrong_ , but the more he remembers the more he believes that this was real. He still believes that. It doesn’t even occur to him until now that this _could_ be some convoluted excuse to break up with Taako, but he dismisses it out of hand. Kravitz wears his heart on his sleeve, and right now it’s bleeding through.

Roll back the tape. Rewind the coin. He’s got one chance to get this right.

“You think I’m going to...to find someone else. To get bored and leave.” It’s a statement, but Kravitz nods regardless. “That’s horseshit, Kravitz.”

Kravitz opens his mouth but Taako shakes his head. He takes a deep breath, then sits on the old, dusty wooden floor on a whim, tugging Kravitz down with him, and Kravitz goes, blinking at the change. He’s patient, like that. Taking Taako’s quirks in stride.

“I won’t find anyone else.” He laces his fingers through Kravitz’s, one by one, knuckle-by-knuckle. “I’ve had hundreds of years to look. I _know_ what bullshit love feels like, Kravitz. I _know_ when people are fucking with me. I’ve got a support network that’s fucking _legendary_. And I know what the real thing feels like too, Kravitz, and this is it. You’re endgame, Kravitz. I’m not going to go anywhere else, Taako’s not on — not on the significant other market. There’s no one better than the one I already got.”

Kravitz’s face crumples like it does when he’s trying desperately not to cry, and it just further proves his fucking point that Taako catalogues a half-dozen different reactions and how Kravitz will react to each one, like how he’ll break down entirely if Taako wraps an arm around his shoulders and rubs circles on the back of his neck, or how he’ll kiss the back of Taako’s hand if Taako presses their foreheads together and covers Kravitz’s hand in both of his. Here and now, though, Taako does neither of these things, because he knows enough about wounds to know that flames are the best catharsis and a necessary step toward healing; enough about death to know about the resurrection that comes after. The sunrise that follows every dusk.

“You don’t go into things planning for the end, my dude,” Taako murmurs. “Shit, Krav, I’m in this for as long as you are. You think I’m — you think I’m gonna have some world-ending revelation, huh? I already _know_ you. Not — maybe not perfectly, I mean, I’ve only seen you at work a couple of times, but I’ve seen you at your worst and your best and I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Kravitz buries his face quickly in his hands, shoulders drawn bowstring-tense like he can keep his composure from snapping through willpower alone. (He can’t; Taako knows.)

“I love you,” he says. “You’re it. I’m not going anywhere. I could turn this into a, I dunno, essay or whatever, and that would be the thesis. I love you. I’m not gonna leave you. I can’t honestly conceive of ever _wanting_ to, honestly, because what am I wanting for? Look at you! I’ve got me a man that’s compassionate, and respectful, and honestly a fucking dork.”

He wins the shaky snort he was hoping for, and the choked sob that follows on its tail. “I love you, Kravitz,” he says again, and then, spacing his words, says: “There’s no one for me after you.”

Now, _now_ that he’s said his piece, he draws Kravitz against his shoulder, lets two hands ball into the smooth material of his shirt, and traces circles along the soft nape of Kravitz’s neck as he sobs.

He knew, in retrospect. Not for sure, and he’d never known _what_ that reservation was, but there was always a sort of urgency in Kravitz, like a starving man shown a string of free pasta passes and not knowing how tall the stack might be. In retrospect, he was waiting for the day Taako left him. .

It’s relieving, in a way. Now that he knows what the problem is, he can fix it. And he will.

The top of the lake echoes faintly with the muffled sounds of hitched sobs and broken gasps, and Taako smooths his palms down the back of Kravitz’s suit until his breathing evens. Even then he doesn’t move to let Kravitz go, and Kravitz doesn’t pull away; Taako tips his head forward and buries his face in Kravitz’s shoulder, holding tight enough that his shoulders ache and not caring one bit.

The resignation was the worst part, Taako decides. That Kravitz was so convinced Taako would go that he’d made his peace with it.

 _He’d fallen too hard and too fast and it burned him, every time_. Kravitz had told him that, once. Quietly, with Taako in his lap, their hands laced between his knees, the television a distracting hum in the background. Taako’s filled abruptly with the wild urge to tear into every single person that has hurt this man and calms just as quickly.

There’s no better revenge, after all, than happiness.

“I love you,” Taako whispers.

Kravitz chokes a laugh against his shoulder, fingers unclenching slowly. “I love you too,” he manages, voice raw. He leans back, wiping at his eyes, and winces at Taako’s shirt. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Taako bats his hands away and cups Kravitz’s cheeks in his hands. “Thanks for being honest, my dude.”

“Well, it was mostly Lup.”

“Yeah, she’s the best at that. Nah, I mean thanks for telling me. It...I’m glad. That we had this conversation.”

Kravitz’s gaze flits downward then back up. “I still...I’ll work on it.”

Yeah. Those sorts of things don’t go away easy. “I’ll help.”

“Is this the sort of help that Angus gives me on a case, or the sort of help I give you in the kitchen.”

Taako laughs, and then Kravitz does too, an inelegant snort that Taako had been delighted to discover, back when his postal address was somewhere up on the fake moon. “Hopefully closer to the former, but honestly, this convo has drained basically all the emotional competency outta cha’boy for the next month at _least_ , so it’s a tossup.”

He folds one of Kravitz’s hands between his and closes his eyes, and smiles in soft triumph as two cool lips brush against his forehead.

“I assumed you knew.” Taako opens his eyes to look curiously at Kravitz, who shrugs, almost helplessly. “About this. I assumed that was the plan, that was why I didn’t...bring it up earlier, I suppose. Sort of an unspoken, uh...plan,” he finishes lamely.

Between the two of them, Kravitz advocates for honesty. Open communication, he calls it. At least that hasn’t gotten jossed in all this chaos. “I still trust you, babe,” Taako says, and pats his cheek. He’s quite done with all this emotional bullshit, thank you. He’s done his part, he’s been cried on, his favorite shirt has gotten trashed, and his favorite man got trashed too, and now he’s ready to sleep and deal with the emotional ramifications of all this bullshit in the morning.

He stands, and proffers his hand, and as he always does, Kravitz takes it.

“I dunno about you, but cha’boy is tired as _fuck_ , and real eager to do something about it.”

“I could go for a nap,” Kravitz says amicably, and Taako listens for a hint of — yes-man-ing or complacency or whatever, but there’s a thread of real exhaustion in his voice and Kravitz has never really worried about giving his opinion besides, so he gestures Kravitz to take them home, and he does.

The more he thinks it over, as he gets ready for bed, the more it sort of makes _sense_. Now that he’s had more than a handful of heartbeats to reflect, he doesn’t think Kravitz was faking any of this. He’s too honest. The self-esteem is, well, another matter, of course, but the man he loves hasn’t changed. Not fundamentally. This relationship, what they have, is still intact, and it’s still good.

When Taako heads into the bedroom Kravitz is already there, and holds open the blankets for Taako to crawl under, just as considerate as always. Taako rolls his eyes as he curls around Kravitz and snuffs out the lights. “Thanks.”

Kravitz hums absently. Taako’s got darkvision and Kravitz has death-powers so they both see in grayscale, colorless but clear and sharp.

“I love you,” Taako says.

“I mean, you too, but love, you’re starting to sound a little like a broken record.”

“Just gotta make sure you know, all right? Especially after that.”

“That wasn’t — ”

“ — what you doubted, yeah, I know. But I do, and I want you to know that, and I _also_ want you to know that cha’boy is a stubborn elf and when I say I’m not going anywhere, I mean it.”

“Logically, you can’t know that yet.”

Taako rolls his eyes again, this time knowing full well that Kravitz can see him. “That’s sorta how relationships _work_ , babe. You just gotta trust that I’m not gonna leave.”

Realization dawns in Kravitz’s eyes and Taako almost laughs. Dork. “Chew on that,” he says, patting Kravitz’s cheek affectionately, then flips over and snuggles backward until his back hits Kravitz’s chest.

He feels more than hears the rumble of Kravitz’s deep chuckle, and two cool arms wrap securely around his stomach. Despite — this, and despite everything, a smile curls up the corners of Taako’s mouth. This, at least, is right.

“I love you, Taako.”

Taako reaches backward to pat Kravitz’s cheek sleepily. The rest of it he’ll deal with in the morning; this, he’ll say any time. “Love you too, babe.”

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments much appreciated, thanks babes!! if y'all like stuff like this, let me know, 'cause i got something else in the works i'm a little on the fence about. anyway, catch me on tumblr at believingbrook. much love!


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